UNMANNED AIRCRAFT: Helicopters Without Pilots

Sky Spies.

Black Hornet micro helicopter
(Photo courtesy: Prox Dynamics — click on photo to enlarge)

The reductions in force and budget cutbacks have U.S. commanders increasingly turning to unmanned aircraft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.

But the low-intensity conflicts springing up around the world — in both urban settings and remote areas without finished airfields — have also increased the need for vertical take off and landing unmanned air vehicles (VTOL-UAVs) … ranging from the full-sized Northrop Grumman Fire Scout to tiny pocket-sized quad-copters like Prox Dynamics’ Black Hornet.

The Black Hornet unmanned aircraft system (UAS) has been tested by the U.S., U.K. and Norwegian militaries and has been used by the British Army since 2012 in Afghanistan’s Helmand and Kandahar provinces. And the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center has awarded Prox Dynamics a $2.5 million contract to develop a pocket-sized UAV for infantry and special operations troops.

Newer unmanned helicopters are being developed by companies from the British Isles to Colorado.

A Welsh company, Torquing Technologies, has begun rolling out its nano drone, Sparrow, and new communications technology for operating it. Sparrow has machine-to-machine communication technology allowing multiple Sparrows to communicate with each other and fly in swarms.

In Fort Collins, Colorado, Scion UAS is developing two VTOL aircraft, the full-sized optionally manned SA-400 Jackal, which has been acquired by the Naval Research Laboratory for testing, and the smaller SA-200 Weasel. Both aircraft are  designed to be payload agnostic, says Scion’s chairman and manager, Jim Sampson. “We try to build the generic pickup truck because every user has a different payload in mind for their mission and every mission is going to require a different suite of payloads,” he noted.

To read more, see your 4GWAR editor’s story in the September issue of Ground Combat and Tactical ISR magazine.